School head calls strike "disruptive"

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, May 8, 2007

With those words, Bob Sanger, headmaster of Faith Academy on Route 7, summed up his reaction Tuesday to the strike by New Milford school bus drivers.
"I'm not going to sit in judgment because I'm not part of the negotiating process, but I'm sorry that the kids' education is interrupted by this type of activity," Sanger said. "It's disruptive."
Sanger, whose school is served by All-Star Transportation, said because he had such short notice of the strike, he decided to go along with the other public schools in New Milford and close Tuesday.
"We could have stayed open if we'd had more time to think about it, but it came all of sudden," Sanger said. "It was so late in the afternoon."
Faith Academy, which is part of the multi-denominational Faith Ministries, houses 240 students in grades pre-K through 12. It moved from Clapboard Ridge Road in Danbury to Route 7 two years ago.
About 25 percent of the academy's students who live in the New Milford area travel each day on All-Star Transportation buses. The school's own bus carries 36 others from in and around Danbury.
The remaining students, who live farther away in places such as Waterbury, Naugatuck and Kent, are driven to and from the academy each day by family members.
Although classrooms were empty Tuesday, Sanger said staff members reported for duty as usual and one group of 36 students was able to go on a scheduled field trip to Mystic aboard the school's own bus.
Sanger said that even if the strike is not settled, the academy will be open today.
"We'll be open whether the buses are here or not," Sanger said. "The people in New Milford will just have to find a way of getting their children to school. We'll use our own bus to pick up the children from Danbury."
One campus unaffected by the strike was the Sherman School, which is also served by All-Star Transportation and was open Tuesday. The school's current student population stands at 485.
"The strike has not impacted us and we've had no interruptions at all," said Mike Pascento, the dean of students.
Pascento said the drivers responsible for carrying Sherman's students had driven their buses as usual and had followed their normal routes.
With neither the school nor the bus company able to explain the identities of the drivers, company spokesman Jeff Woods declined to comment on whether they were among those employees who had elected not to strike.